At the 2022 Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers (MDVA) Leadership Conference and Annual Business Meeting held in Ellicott City, Md., three dairy producers openly shared what it’s like to work alongside family and manage employees.
The panel, ‘Dairy Workforce: Bridging the Culture Gap,’ was moderated by Katie Dotterer, the owner and founder of AgvoKate. The MDVA member-owner panelists included Ben Smith of Cool Lawn Farm in Remington, Virg., Mark Mosemann, Misty Mountain Farm, Warfordsburg, Penn., and Claire Burdette, Windy Knoll View, Mercersburg, Penn.
Burdette describes her employees as dedicated and consistent and shares that the farm leads with a hands-on and family-friendly management style. She farms alongside her husband, Justin, and his parents and they have one part-time employee, as well as several youths who lend a helping hand.
“We do a lease program, and several kids help us out every Sunday to help out,” she shared.
The Burdette family milks 120 cows, and she remarks that they look to utilizing retired farmers to help them out. Windy Knoll View had one longtime employee that they were able to acquire from a neighboring large dairy.
“When he left, we were able to hire a part-time female employee, who has worked on and off for us over the last six years,” Burdette says.
Smith milks more than 900 cows, alongside his father and brother-in-law, as well as 16 employees, and credits his father for laying the foundation for establishing a good work team decades ago.
“It started with a really good herdsman who’s still with us today and in a sense, he’s watched me grow up,” he says. “Then when I was in middle school, my dad hired another really good guy who is our main feed guy.”
The longstanding employees have been the main source for recruiting new labor for Cool Lawn Farm.
“I don’t have an answer [on where to] to find people for work,” he remarks. “When we have had employees leave, those guys find someone who can help out.”
When it comes to training new employees, Mosemann has his employees job shadow, meaning they staff an extra person on the shift.
“I used to do a lot of that training myself, but my Spanish isn’t great,” he says. “My father is the fluent one.”
Misty Mountain Farm has also incorporated the FARM training to help employees understand the ‘why’ behind their roles, which he shares have become very valuable.
Mosemann milks 450 Holstein cows, alongside his wife and his parents and a younger brother. They employ six full-time workers, as well as utilize some part-time high schoolers.
Training Employees
When talking about training employees, Smith says he and his family believe in hands-on learning.
“Whatever the task is - pushing cows, milking, or feeding calves - either myself, my dad, or one of our senior guys works alongside with them for a few times, so they can get a hang of it,” he shares.
Smith also credits Tom Wall’s Dairy Coach on-farm training videos to successful trainings.
“They are so good and have helped a lot in the training process,” he adds. “It adds about 30 minutes to milking time, which we didn’t have the downtime for, as we milk 24 hours a day, but our quality improved because of solid training and these videos.”
One of Burdette’s former employees helped train new employees and made sure to follow through on the farm’s strict protocols.
Benefits and Celebrations
Pausing to make employees feel appreciated is easier said than done when running a dairy farm is nonstop. Mosemann says they make sure meals are provided at all staff meetings, as well as provide Christmas bonuses.
“We also offer a milk quality bonus based on somatic cell counts,” he shared. “If they get under a certain level, they get a bonus.”
Smith shared that they try to treat every employee as they would want to be treated in return.
“Some of them come from previous employers that did not produce this,” he says.
The Smiths also provide lunch at quarterly meetings and try to joke around, making it fun. They also bring in a translator through Genex, whom Cool Lawn Farm’s staff has established a relationship with and become comfortable talking to.
“We also do a Christmas party and go out to eat after we are done with silage,” he remarked. “This past year for Christmas, we gave them a Leatherman tool with their initials engraved, along with hats and gloves.”
When Problems Arise
The panel talked about how they handle employee problems on their farms. Mosseman shared that they outline protocols and expectations and try to reinforce them at staff meetings.
“After every meeting, we randomly ask guys five things they remember from the meeting and for the most part they did retain the information,” he says.
He also comments it starts with the owners being visible at the meetings.
“I can go back to the guy and say, ‘Remember, we talked about this,’ and it kind of progresses from there,” he says. “Usually, the guy that’s not doing his job, will work his way out.”
When it comes to family members working together, Mosseman shares that his family is a tight-knit group.
“Every Monday we sit down and have a management meeting and set the schedule and expectations for the week,” he shared. “I think that’s helped a lot.”
When family conflict arises, they have found value in bringing in an outside consultant to help mediate the problem.
“We have had some tough meetings,” he shared. “It’s tough, but you got to do it.”
Smith concurs with Mosseman, saying that you can’t take yourself or the farm work too seriously.
“It’ll be there tomorrow,” Smith says. “And, I’ve learned the hard way, but it’s not worth blowing up and having a fight about it because at the end of the day, we’re all family and we love each other.”
When it comes to employee conflicts, Smith says that his farm operates on a three-strike system. Every year, the employees start fresh, with a clean slate.
“It’s not been a real big issue for us,” he commented. “Although we did have a meeting about discrimination and set a zero-tolerance policy.”
Once they did that, Smith reports he was amazed at how quickly it stopped.
He says if they find an employee who is cutting corners and not doing a job well, the other staff members are quick to help autocorrect it.
